Get Backers: Fragile Lives
by Milo Of Meelos
Summary: How does it all end? Are the get backers all sugarcoated and mellow, for a street gang? Explore a darker theme to the popular show, as war breaks out in the lower town and we finally learn the point of the get backers.
1. Prologue

The distant flashes of lightening followed by the sonorous rumble of thunder brought promises of rain. At that time, a blond-haired, brown-eyed man was speaking to a God.

The God was rich with a continually changing opalescent,and was reverberating between shapes and figures with two conspicious blotches like spilled crimson ink for eyes. There was no body, just some sort of floating amoebic mass of glob that Ginji thought of as a head. It had a voice that was projected directly into Ginji's head, leaving him only to obey, he was hanging by the God's every word.

It was the eyes that did it; it was definitely the eyes that cast the hypnotic spell over him.

Your destiny lies here, with me, the God was saying but no words were spoken

What should I do? Ginji found himself responding.

The taciturn God directed him to follow the wall, so he did.

The instant he touched it, he knew the wall, he knew where he was… it was the limitless fortress. The coarse feel o underlying stone with the chipping paint, the flow of electromagnetic waves all about it, the obvious metal lining causing that magnetic tinge, it all came flooding back to him. He walked on.

The hallway was dark and stank of rotting flesh; the Godhead's luminance was all the light there was. The darkness was black, like the inside of a room with no windows, or the dank of a desolate cave. He could hear giggles and whispers in the corners, it sounded like Shido and Pore and Masaki, singing filthy ballads about the fall of the prodigal lightening emperor.

Is this a dream? he pondered.

Of course, it's a dream.

Then can I wake up?

Not until I've had my say.

The labyrinth of the limitless fortress is one of the most intricate designs; build to compete with the best. The Minotaur itself would lose its way in the corridor, had it walked the hallways of Maze City. But the lightening emperor grew up here, played 'hide and go seek' and eventually went on to rule the lower town of the limitless fortress. But all of that was in the past, why relive it again and again? He thought. I just want to forget it all.

You will not be permitted such solace.

Why? I moved on, I am free. At least, I want to be. 

The corridor curved up ahead leftwards to meet black darkness. There were no windows, however somewhere behind him; Ginji could hear the pelting of the drizzle on glass. His stomach knotted and he felt like a fish swimming towards a hooked worm, being baited and tantalized.

At a distance a solitary light sprayed into the corridor. A slightly ajar door lay silhouetted against the bright illumination.

Ginji made his way to the lit room, tentatively, edged on by the voice in his head. Go on; go on, the God was saying, but his legs felt liquid and wobbly. He managed to drag himself to the room and peer in, with all the prudence of a cat. And his hazelnut eyes began to scrutinize the scene within.

The dishevelled brown-haired man looked back at him, he was smiling lightly but it was difficult to make it out. His features resembled a shrivelled raisin, skin sticking to the bones and arms like twigs. He was a slim, tallish figure withered by the mistreatment of the years. His arms were weakly slumped by his sides, his shoulders hunched and all the vitality Ginji remembered had long since faded from his azure eyes. It was all very pathetic, to see the fallen serpent pitted against such indignities.

Ginji would have said his name, out of surprise if not despise, had he not woken up in a pool of his own sweat.

Moonlight blended with a sullen yellow sodium light from the warehouse below flowed into the room through the window. He walked to it and stood there concentrating on the flicker of some distant neon sign, he was lost in his thoughts. He stood there unmoving for what seemed a lifetime and then walked back to his bed. 

'Dammit… Dammit all. Looks like I'll have to move again.'


	2. Chapter 1

**_Chapter 1.  
People._**

Wan Pore sucked at the unlit cigarette studying the empty coffee shop. Back in the day, there always used to be customers around. They were freeloaders but it beat being all alone. He sparked a lighter and pulled deep, the flame blazed orange and dimmed, as he felt the smoke at the back of his throat. He held his breath for a while; out of habit from the days he rolled joints, and blew it out again. A curtain of smoke rose upwards and spread out in to the air.  
'Maybe, I ought to give Natsumi a call', he said that aloud to see how rational it felt to the ears.

This, he would proclaim everyday. He would speak out aloud and debate himself if he ought to act on that caprice. One day, he went as far as dialling her number but got the machine. He did not leave a message.

Eventually reason would creep in and he would realise that a modern day single mother would be groping for bigger and better things than a career as a waitress, and he would laugh at his stupidity.  
So, he laughed at his stupidity.

It was not until late afternoon that the man with the limp right arm and the tattoo of a scorpion walked in. He wore a cap that covered his shabby hair and was in need of a good shave and an even better barber. He ordered a coffee.

'You still make it the same', said Izuma. He always started a conversation in this manner.

'Just the way you like it.' Wan pore smiled lightly, a pensive smile. He always played this game to drive away the uneasy feeling. He had a difficult time talking these days; actually they had a difficult time talking since they did the job on their friend, the traitor. Pore didn't, he knew all good things come to an end and the end of the get backers' retrieval service had validated his theory, all good friendships have a betrayal. Besides, he knew people who had had it far worse, Ban and Ginji. They still did.

'I managed to track your blonde friend.' Izuma held up his hand. 'Wait, don't tell me, I already know. It's the cunning one you want. He's proving far more elusive.'

'Hmm… its as if he's vanished of the face of the earth. How about the package? Have you delivered it yet?'

'The monthly package? No, not yet. I'll get it done today. I can't believe its gotten that bad that you can't do it yourself.'

'Yeah, it is quite bad. But thanks, you know, for the package and for looking.'

'Sure, no problem.' He didn't say 'what are friends for'.

'Hey,' Pore went on after the short but awkward silence. 'Did you hear about Sakai? His yakuza faction is under heavy investigation. The papers are saying it could lead to life.'

'That's good.' He was getting uncomfortable. 'That's very good.'

* * *

Makubex stirred lightly and sat up on the cold floor. He had grown up since Ginji handed him 'the volts' and since he did, things were never the same. He sheepishly gazed about his surroundings and for a few minutes was at peace with himself. Sakura was sleeping beside him.  
_So beautiful_, he thought._ You are so beautiful._

Her jasmine scent was heavy in the air and her orange hair was draped over her face, she was asleep. He lightly ran a hand over her bare spine. She 'mmm ed' lightly but did not wake. The sun would be up soon, the new day would bring more death and war. He kept looking at Sakura's face and resembled a little boy once more on the verge of tears. He looked away, feeling impotent and helpless. He loved her but he wasn't able to protect her… not against the brutes from the belt line and Babylon City, he was not God. The one God Lower town had seen had turned tail and fled.

They had made love with all the lust of dogs and pigs. They bit and hurt each other, nails dug deep into the flesh and they cried in ecstasy. That was how the animals in the jungle did it, which was how the people of lower town did it.

He breathed her in once again and felt the feeling of inevitable failure return. He felt his inability to hold the barriers of lower town against the armies of the belt line, the mad dogs of the Gods above. He could not do it, not by himself.

'The volts, they're all yours, Makubex', Ginji had said before he turned and walked away from it all, into the outside world where Makubex was forbidden to go.

'You don't need him. You're everything the volts ever wanted and will ever need.' Sakura was awake now.

'How can you be so sure? I am not a God, Sakura. How can I fight Gods then?'

'I am sure because I love you. I am sure because I know you love me. And I am sure you will never stop protecting me or your home.'

Sakura was lying, of course, Makubex knew that but he was grateful, nonetheless. She would always tell him whatever was necessary to push him forward, to stop him from going backwards. Nonetheless, he was incredulous.

'I love you too, Sakura.' He wasn't so sure anymore if he did. He often wondered if she was just another manner of release for him, like the opium or the joints. 'But I… we cannot face the Gods above without the lightening emperor. It's not possible; the morale of the men fails too often. Ginji was an impetus to go on fighting; it is as if the limitless fortress bends to his will and the people too… Sorry, was.'

He walked naked up to a small intercom unit; 'Siren?'

'Yeah, boss man?' came a chirpy voice from the other side of the line.

'Call a conference. Have the lieutenants assemble in an hour.'

'Sure thing, boss man'

'Ugh… and please no more boss man, just Makubex.'

'Gotcha, boss man.'

* * *

Sakura walked up to the white-haired man, letting the sheets fall to the ground. ' Come on, you have another hour don't you?' she said as she rubbed his penis and kissed him. 

And they made love like animals, the cold distant man and his manner of release.

* * *

Somewhere in the backwaters of Tokyo, in a sequestered little apartment lived a mother and her child.

She had aged since the day, but her childish cuteness was retained. Being twenty-two years of age, she still resembled a teenager. Her bone thin hands hardened by overwork at diners and bars did not diminish her attractive beauty but that wasn't the problem. She could have found someone if she wished but she didn't, she just didn't want to anymore.

Natsumi Mizuki watched the trim cigarette, and the snaky smoke billowing and dissipating into nothingness.

Little Ginji was asleep._ Thank god, i need the time to think._

It wasn't too long ago, about three years or so, but it was before the war began. She remembered bits and pieces of the ordeal. Here and there the memory was lucid.

_Helen of Troy was so beautiful_, she thought._ How could something so beautiful lead to the greatest war of the Greek histories?_

She had read a few books. The wooden horse, the brave Achilles, the noble Hector, the diabolical plot, the heel of Achilles. Good stories, she theorized are the source of infinity, they don't die simply because they tend to repeat themselves. She thought of herself as the Helen of this war filled with betrayal and bravery.

She pulled at her cigarette, feeling the coarse smoke at the back of her throat. She blew and the transitory smoke once more appeared and meandered into nothingness.

They had taken her, the Gods above to instigate the madness of the Lightening emperor, Ginji had loved her and probably still did. One day, after a year of death and madness, they left her at the door of the Lower town, shivering and sacred and of a fleeting sanity.

A year later when she left the sanatorium, she remembered she had a child.

She knew she had served her purpose in the story, to enrage the protectors of lower town. So, she left and hid, like a sociopath with no direction, fulfilled of her destiny, she and her child.

The doorbell broke the macabre reminiscence.

She cursed under her breath and made her way to let in yet another 'burden' but there was no one there, just a package.

The package was a timed monthly. The package had no note or letter, just fifty thousand yen.

She pondered on the identity of her patron. She thought of the man who had whisked her away from her mundane days to a life of harshness and madness. She thought of the father of her child. She thought of the man she loved... she thought of Ban Midou.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**A job…**

They called him a blood lusted maniac but they missed the point yet again.

The sight of the neon ambience drowning in the pool of crimson glint did not satisfy some homicidal fancy, nor did it gratify some childhood depravity. Blood was blood to him; the gushing wine-red rivulets were nothing in the equation. It was actually about the life in death… the lively glee of the dance.

Kurudo Akabane, known professionally as Doctor Jackal, smiled his dead smile, a thin smile from ear to ear. 'Now then ladies and gentlemen, I will ask you one more time- "I am looking for a young man. Have you seen him?"'

Five minutes and the sight of a fresh body, departed off to necropolis, were all the impetus the taciturn crowd needed. He left the bar, heart pounding, feeling truly alive. A scalpel, half hanging out of his palm, was colored an eerie crimson. He clenched his fist around it and felt the warm, sticky metal against his cold skin and he felt comforted.

The warehouses were blocks of grey against the night-sky and a piss-yellow moon stared out of the inky blackness as if a celestial eye.

It looked like a shot from a horror movie. Half-expecting a wolf howl to emanate from the some distant street, he turned a dinky dang corner into an alleyway filled with garbage bags, smelling of rotting vegetables. He hoped someone would try and mug him.

The alleyway was in fact a detour to the warehouses, where he was expecting an encounter with an old friend… atleast on his part. He had had some fun times with 'the young man' in whom much interest was being betrayed by some of the top influences in Tokyo city. (No, not just Tokyo but the world).

_How long has it been now?_ _Four year… five?_

He could feel excitement positively seeping through his whole person. Every step brought him closer to what he hoped would be a 'lively' encounter.

They had worked together many a time in the past but now it was different. Everybody's testy nature had filled to the brim; he would finally get to beat the lightening emperor, no tricks this time. The feel of non-magnetic alloy against his skin assured him of it. But would he kill him? How could he? The object to be transported was given with clear cut instructions that Ginji Amano was not to be harmed on its delivery, and sadly, he was a consummate professional.

_Criminologists_, he thought. _What a despicable bunch. Studying subjects from the outside rather than the inside and claiming to understand. _He would know, he had been one.

Failing constantly at his theories, he decided to undertake a journey into the psyche of an archetypical homicidal serial killer. It all began with the cat.

Mr. Whiskers was a snowy white kitten. Furry and lovable by all whom laid their eyes on it, but it had to be done. A man's career is first and foremost. So, on a moonless night with books on anatomy and private journals kept beside him, he got to work, for the first time on a living thing. The silent rustles in the dark and monotonous mewing were still fresh in his head.

Innards, spine, liver and gentiles were all neatly lined up next to the crumpled lifeless body which resembled a tiny snowball, smelling of gas and guts.

And he wept, like a child at the revelation. He truly understood. _There is nothing there, we are truly alone. The three fates do not watch over us, nothing is assured save for death herself. Lady death will come for all, be you man or not. It is the only certainty… death is the only certainty of life._

It was the irony that did it, all the humanitarians fighting against racism and poverty and discrimination, and here was death devoid of all those things. The irony was that all those people did not understand it, all those people _fighting _for utopia.

_Hypocrites. Utopia belongs to lady death. For fair and just, she is. As Poussin once stated, __'Et in Arcadia Ego…'._

_And the brawls?_ Well all work and no play make jack a dull boy.

The warehouse was filled with a black darkness like the kind in closed rooms with no windows, it smelled humid and of the sea. The salty scent wafted about due to the port against which the waves, gushed and beat threateningly. He could hear it.

The blackness of the warehouse was contradicted by the yellow light coming from the small congested little office, on the far side of the warehouse. There was a metal staircase leading upto the far left corner where the office hung, seemingly in mid-air, due to the tricks of the darkness.

Dr. Jackal let his eyes climb to meet the silhouette standing against the sodium flood, hands crossed and looking down at him.

'You're getting sloppy, old man,' said Ginji.

One, two and the blink of an eye, Jackal was up the stairs and facing the blond blue-eyed boy, returning smug with a smile and hate with excitement. 'Yes, I suppose I am, aren't I now?'

The grimace on his face and the clenching of his jaw, told Akabane that he wasn't welcome. And so he smiled, again and he spoke. 'I have a message for you, mighty lightening emperor.'

'Don't fuck with me Jackal. You know I hate that title.'

'Yes, I do.'

Ginji bristle. 'What's the message you were meant to **transport, **Jackal?'

'"We know the location of your friend. Come back to the war and you can have it", says Lord and ruler of lower town, Makubex.'

Ginji's jaw tightened, his hand clenched in to a fist and he managed to whimper something in a spasm of rage and reminiscence. 'Ban'

'Oh! What fun, the Get Backers are going to be back in business.'

Jackal had gone too far. Ginji met him with an expression of spite and rage. 'If you want to fight, Jackal, I am up for it.'

'I would love too, Ginji m'boy. But sadly, the clientele seem quite keen on avoiding a roadside brawl between the two of us.'

'I wish they weren't. I've waiting for the day, when I could electrocute you till your eyes pop out and your blood boils.'

'Don't lose heart yet, m'boy. I assure you, before this is over, we will tango.'

'You've finished your assignment, now fuck off.'

* * *

**Do you love me?**

'Do you love me?' The silver seam of moonlight that caressed the thread master's bare skin, gave him the appearance of a celestial being, at least in Jubei's eyes.

'Do you love me?' Eron Toshiki had. The blonde blue-eyed boy, who used to pleasure Kadsuki in the dark of the night, 'just sex,' the thread spinner called it, but Toshiki had fallen in love. Kadsuki ran a hand over his slender body and moaned lightly. He ran his tongue over his lips. He had an erection. Jubei studied Kadsuki's eyes, the deep brown and hypnotically began sinking into them. But he wouldn't, he couldn't say _he loved him._

'Do you love me?' He asked again as he dropped to his knees, sensually and lightly rubbed Jubei's throbbing penis causing a throbbing in his heart. ('Umm,' he said). The thread master ran a wet tongue over the erected manhood and rubbed him in between his thighs, Jubei could feel his cheeks and body grow hot red. It felt wonderful, the wet tongue and the gentle rustle of skin against skin. He laid a hand on Kadsuki's head, giving it a slight nudge, encouraging him to go on. Kadsuki took the hint and gave in to the edging on.

'Do you love me?' he asked again, moving his head slowly dancing to a rhythm in his head. Jubei wanted him to go further, take him completely in. He nudged his head harder, he wanted him to swallow deeper (Kadsuki was now rubbing his testicles, 'Oh god,' Jubei thought). And he came in short spurts all over the eager thread master's face.

'Do you love me?' Jubei ran his tongue up and over the sticky nose, lips and cheeks of the thread spinner, not saying a word.

'Do you love me?' Kadsuki asked as he lightly pushed the needle master to his knees to pleasure him. Jubei was rougher, amateurish, and eager. He began by licking his belly button ('Umm,' Kadsuki thought. 'I love first timers.'). He circled his serpentine tongue around Kadsuki's penis and kissed it and sucked it, like a kid does a Popsicle on a hot summer day. He loved it, he loved the salty eruption of semen in his mouth, and he loved the thread master.

'Do you love me?' Kadsuki asked as Jubei kissed him, the sticky semen scented breath and the salty tasting saliva. Kadsuki moaned as Jubei ran his tongue up and down his neck, nibbling at his ear and sucking at his nipple. Even though, Jubei treated him as he would a woman, Kadsuki enjoyed himself and lost in the orgasm and scent and the sweat, He threw Jubei supine upon the floor and wrapped his legs around him.

'Do you love me?' Kadsuki ventured as he nibbled at his chin and put his serpentine tongue in his mouth, lashing it wildly like an eel and withdrawing it almost immediately, giving him a surge of excitement. He studied his vowed protector's face, pleasure almost dissimulated by indifference, but the eyes cannot lie. Why did he rebuff him so?

'Is it because of Toshiki?' Kadsuki sat naked on Jubei's bare stomach. 'Is it because he left and died in Babylon city that you don't want to fall in love with me? Is it why you want to be so frigid?'

Jubei did not reply.

'I loved him, Jubei. But I also loved you. I loved you both, but you were always so indifferent towards me, why couldn't you just tell me how you felt? Toshiki did.'

He placed a hand on Jubei's face and ran it down to his penis, he would pleasure him till he cracked, he needed to be held every night, he wanted to protect, and Kadsuki knew that. He fondled his penis and ran his naked thighs back and forth, having his penis in Jubei's mouth every forth and out every back. It was ecstatic, it was addictive, it was love and passion, all things he had longed for all his life.

'Do you love me?' Kadsuki asked as he came the second time that night. Toshiki was so beautiful, but Kadsuki realised soon enough that he was only suffering from a delusional passion, after their first few nights. After that Toshiki had left for Babylon city, in the razzle-dazzle of hate and hurt and a broken heart, never to return again. They proclaimed him dead and held a cremation ceremony, but time wound, all healed.

'Do you love me?' It was Jubei he wanted all along and today as they sat all alone, the apparent set of events and well-placed signals, led to this awkwardness, this need, this anomaly, this passion.

'Do you love me?' He asked again as he lay down beside the masculine body of his protector… his friend… his soul mate, cuddled up close and wrapping his legs around him (A peck on the lips that smelled the foul scent of smut and the tantalising smell of sex).

'Yes, I do.' Jubei said as he got on top of the effeminate brown haired man. Kadsuki giggled and allowed Jubei to take him again. He came for the third time much sooner than he had expected.


End file.
